Touch up....C&C please

Southerngal · Aug 27, 2007

A friend of mine asked me to touch up a pic for her. Her son has acne and she really wanted him to have a pic w/out it. Let me know what you think about the after.

ORIGINAL

AFTER

bjrouse · Aug 27, 2007

IMO way too much retouching. Especially around the face.
Why not just use the clone tool to clone out the acne and then expose the colours a little after that

Kanikula · Aug 27, 2007

Bit overdone TBH. Its good work but its too much. They eyes dont look natural.

Southerngal · Aug 27, 2007

Thanks for the opinions. Let me tell you what was done. It really wasnt much at all. I first used the healing tool on the face (Just the areas w/acne). Then I added a second layer and blurred it and masked the top layer. I erased where the acne was located and set the opacity to 10-15% cant exactly remember. I didnt touch the rest of his skin at all. His eyes are the same except for the whites and they were only dodged about 10%. The mother wanted the background to show through a bit, so I selected it and exposed it a bit more (on a another layer). I flattened and played w/curves a bit.

skieur · Aug 27, 2007

The thing to avoid in touching up portraits is making the whole image soft as you have done in this sample. The only thing that should be softened is the skin in the acne area,...certainly not the eyes, hair, mouth, nose, ears etc. Those need to stay sharp.

skieur

NJMAN · Aug 27, 2007

skieur said:
The thing to avoid in touching up portraits is making the whole image soft as you have done in this sample. The only thing that should be softened is the skin in the acne area,...certainly not the eyes, hair, mouth, nose, ears etc. Those need to stay sharp.

skieur

I agree with this completely. well stated.

Southerngal · Aug 27, 2007

As a finishing touch yes I did soften it a bit, but only to help mask all of the work I had to do. Again, I didnt take the photo. My neighbor took it, and wanted me to edit the pic for her. I had to get rid of shadows....expose the background....etc. When I say soften a bit....I mean a gaussian blurred layer at opacity of maybe 10. Drag the pictures over and blow them up....the Original was already blurred. And like I said I only healed and blurred the acne covered areas. Look at the cheeks you can still see the tone and definition of the original picture. When I used curves in the end and brightened him up A LOT it looked completely different from the original.

NoelNTexas · Aug 27, 2007

5 min edit

Southerngal · Aug 27, 2007

I can tell.....that is exactly why I didnt change the exposure of the entire pic....it makes it look too blown out, the shadows look awful and his hair is way too light. You can definitely see that the original pic is blurry in that demonstration. The mother wanted his face to look flawless, as did he. He is very self conscious about his skin.

Travis · Aug 29, 2007

Southerngal - I think your edit is good except for:
- What happened to the eyes. They look very unnatural now
- The fact that his whole face is blurrred.

Travis · Aug 29, 2007

Also, I am a little curious. Is it the boy's wish to have a picture of himself without acne, or just his mom's?

If it isn't his idea at all, it may be offensive to him. A lot of people can be very sensitive about acne. What his mom thinks would be a nice gift he might take as her saying "hey, buddy, your face is messed up and it's a problem. This is how you are supposed to look"

Southerngal · Aug 30, 2007

Travis said:
Southerngal - I think your edit is good except for:
- What happened to the eyes. They look very unnatural now
- The fact that his whole face is blurrred.

Thanks.

Many people have mentioned the blurred face, but I dont think that they realize that the pic was already blurred. If you drag the original to your screen and brighten it a bit...maybe even zoom in a bit you will see that it was already very blurred.

I didnt take the pic....I had to work w/what I had. It was a favor to a friend.

Southerngal · Aug 30, 2007

Travis said:
Also, I am a little curious. Is it the boy's wish to have a picture of himself without acne, or just his mom's?

If it isn't his idea at all, it may be offensive to him. A lot of people can be very sensitive about acne. What his mom thinks would be a nice gift he might take as her saying "hey, buddy, your face is messed up and it's a problem. This is how you are supposed to look"

He knew I was going to do it, and he loves it. He is 14 and has only had acne the past few months. He hates it and didnt want his mother to frame a picture with his acne covered face. His mother isnt the type that cares about that sort of thing. She only wanted him to be happy with the pic and feel good about seeing it framed.

I made sure before I started on the pic that he knew that I was doing it and that he wouldnt get his feelings hurt. He couldnt believe that it could be taken out of the pic.